Internet Explorer 8 101

So IE8 has been released to the web and is ready to download.  I’ve run through the betas, the RC and went to www.microsoft.com/ie8 this morning as soon as I heard it was released.  If you haven’t you can hit that link and download it now for Windows XP, Windows Vista, Server 2003 and Server 2008.  If you are using the Windows 7 beta you’ll have to wait until the RC for Windows 7 before you get to see a newer IE8.

So what do you need to know?  Let’s break it down…

Deployment and Management:

Not much has changed here but there are updates to the tools you use that add support for IE8

• The Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK) 8 simplifies the creation, deployment and management of customized Internet Explorer 8 packages. IEAK 8 can be used to configure the out-of-box Internet Explorer 8 experience or to manage user settings after Internet Explorer 8 deployment.
• The Group Policy Settings Reference for Windows Internet Explorer 8 is a spreadsheet lists the policy settings for computer and user configurations included in the administrative template files (admx/adml) delivered with Windows Internet Explorer 8

Web Development:

While not totally inclusive list I know a lot of readers who also maintain a website or two, myself included.  There is a lot more information to come and I urge you to keep an eye on the Canadian Developers and User Experience blogs for more information.

• Standards Compliance Updates in Internet Explorer 8  Internet Explorer 8 is more standards-compliant than earlier versions of the browser. Many DHTML objects from earlier versions did not comply strictly to standards. While there is still more work to be done in this area, some of these objects have been updated in Internet Explorer 8. When rendering your pages in IE8 mode, these updated objects might cause problems with Web sites that rely on the behavior of earlier versions of Internet Explorer.
• X-UA-Compatible tag and future compatibility  This document describes the document compatibility modes supported by Windows Internet Explorer 8 and explains how they may be implemented on a per-page or per-site basis by using custom headers. By implementing the appropriate compatibility mode, a site can ensure compatibility with Windows Internet Explorer 8 and beyond.
• What's the Compatibility View List?  By default, Internet Explorer 8 displays standards-based Web sites as closely to industry standards as possible. Certain Web sites do not display properly when viewed in Internet Explorer 8 Standards mode. To try to display such sites correctly, users can enable Compatibility View.

You can be sure to learn more about IE8, web slices, accelerators and such as we have the time to write it.  In the mean time if you have any questions, post a comment or email us!